Henry Moore

Marlborough Gallery, London
Acquired from the above in 1981

Henry Moore: Sculptures, Drawings, Graphics 1921-1981 (exhibition catalogue), Palacio de Velazquez, Palacio de Cristal & Parquet de El Retiro, Madrid, 1981, no. 620, illustration of another cast p. 297
Alan Bowness, ed., Henry Moore, Sculpture and Drawings, vol. V, London, 1983, no. 733, illustrations of another cast p. 37, pls. 136-37

Dark brown and green patina. Surface is clean. Work is in excellent condition.
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The subject of the reclining figure, initially inspired by Mexican sculpture, was one of Moore's chief preoccupations throughout his long career. He has commented that "from the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme. The first one I made was around 1924, and probably more than half of my sculptures since then have been reclining figures" (quoted in John Hedgecoe, ed., Henry Moore, London, 1968, p. 151). David Sylvester described the genre in a manner particularly relevant to this sculpture: "They are made to look as if they themselves had been shaped by nature's energy. They seem to be weathered, eroded, tunnelled-into by the action of wind and water. The first time Moore published his thoughts about art, he wrote that the sculpture which moved him most gave out 'something of the energy and power of great mountains...' Moore's reclining figures are not supine; they prop themselves up, are potentially active. Hence the affinity with river-gods; the idea is not simply that of a body subjected to the flow of nature's forces but of one in which those forces are harnessed' (D. Sylvester, Henry Moore, New York & London, 1968, p. 5).

The current sculpture, conceived and cast in 1978, signifies an artist in clear control of his formal vocabulary. The smooth, curvilinear surfaces meet with abrupt conclusions making for a complex though clearly accessible figural interpretation. Moore here calls upon the ubiquitous presence of Greco-Roman sculptural relics while creating a wholly new sense of form.